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Russian President Vladimir Putin on holiday in the Republic of Tuva 2007 Alamy Stock Photo

Opinion Putin's obsession with making Russia great again is driving his approach to Ukraine

Journalist Hannah McCarthy explains the thinking of Russian President Vladimir Putin as his military builds along the border with Ukraine.

RUSSIA HAS ASSEMBLED 100,000 troops along Ukraine’s border in what looks set to be one of the most intense confrontations between east and west since the Cold War era ended.

While Ukrainian officials have downplayed the likelihood of war, the United States has described the move as a precursor to another invasion of Ukraine.

In 2014 Russia annexed the Ukrainian coastal territory of Crimea and it has effectively occupied the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine since 2015 by providing military support to separatists there. At least 14,000 people are estimated to have died in fighting since 2014.

Make Russia great again

The current military build-up along the Ukrainian border can be broadly explained as part of Russia’s long-running campaign to re-assert its power over former Soviet states. The latest escalation follows the United States’ refusal to accede to a series of Russian demands in December concerning the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Russia views NATO and the defensive alliance of Western military powers it represents as a threat to its regional power and influence over former Soviet states. Georgia and Ukraine’s interest in greater cooperation with the West and NATO protection have been particularly antagonising for Moscow.

If either state becomes a member of NATO, an attack on their territory by Russia would require NATO members to provide military support in their defence (i.e., an attack on one is an attack on all.)

In December, Russia issued a series of demands to NATO including a limit on further expansion of its operations eastward towards Russia, the removal of international NATO troops from Poland and the Baltic states, and a guarantee that Ukraine would never be allowed to join NATO.

The United States, the most powerful member of NATO, has deemed the Russian demands largely unacceptable and NATO members have been preparing for worst-case scenarios along the Ukrainian border and an overspill of proxy wars in Eastern Europe.

Putin’s obsession with Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin should by no means be expected to be rational in how he conducts policy. Putin has spent much of the pandemic cocooned in a Covid isolation bubble with little interaction with the outside world and holds an obsessive view rooted in white Slavic nationalism that “Russian and Ukrainians are one people.”

Last July he wrote that “Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians are all descendants of Ancient Rus, which was the largest state in Europe. Slavic and other tribes across the vast territory – from Ladoga, Novgorod, and Pskov to Kiev and Chernigov – were bound together by one language (which we now refer to as Old Russian), economic ties, the rule of the princes of the Rurik dynasty, and – after the baptism of Rus – the Orthodox faith.”

And, of course, if Ukrainians are merely a branch of a pan-Russian nation, they have little right to independence or sovereignty over their borders in Putin’s view – which would helpfully give Russia access to considerable economic and agricultural resources in Ukraine, once the second-largest economy in the Soviet Union.

Putin’s idealised depiction of Russian-Ukrainian relations omits a long history of oppression and interference. The Russian empire largely banned the use of the Ukrainian language, while the Soviet government in Moscow created a man-made famine in Ukraine in the 1930s that starved almost four million Ukrainians to death.

In 2014, the Kremlin tried to bribe the Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich with a $15 billion loan in return for not signing an association agreement with Brussels which would bring Ukraine a step closer to EU membership (and away from Russia).

Today the Kremlin is continuing to practice a policy of ‘Russification’ in Ukraine. Authorities orchestrated the relocation of Russians to Crimea, while almost one million Ukrainians in the occupied territory are estimated to have received Russian passports.

Putin’s strongman image

The annexation of Crimea in 2014 coincided with record popularity for Putin. Despite the punishing economic sanctions imposed by the West in the wake of the annexation, polling in 2019 showed that a majority of Russians continue to support the move.

The Crimean coast is now a popular holiday destination for Russians who have few qualms about buying wine produced in the annexed territory in their local supermarket in Russia. In contrast, the Donbas region has fewer cultural ties with Russia than Crimea and its occupation has been harder to maintain, with regular outbreaks of fighting.

The Russian state media pushes the Kremlin’s depictions of Ukraine as a puppet state for the United States, while the lack of free press and political opposition to Putin in Russia means that there is little real public debate on the country’s military interventions overseas.

But as the Russian economy has flailed under economic sanctions and endemic corruption, public support for Putin has dwindled. The current display of military power along the Ukrainian border now provides a convenient way for him to resuscitate his popularity and his strongman image.

It remains to be seen though whether Putin’s latest attempt to make Russia great again – at least in the eyes of the Russian public – will succeed.

But a costly war with a country that Russia is supposed to have a “brotherly” relationship with may prove hard for even Russian state media to spin.

Hannah McCarthy is a journalist in Beirut. She was previously based in Moscow.

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    Mute Onion Knight
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    Jun 29th 2017, 4:09 PM

    ‘Pro-abortion’? I think it’s pronounced ‘pro-choice’.

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    Mute Shawn O'Ceallaghan
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    Jun 29th 2017, 6:59 PM

    @Onion Knight: no its pro abortion…. for abortion. Just lime against abortion is anti-abortion. Once side wants abortions to be allowed the other not.

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    Mute Mo
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    Jun 29th 2017, 7:22 PM

    @Shawn O’Ceallaghan: no it’s not it’s pro choice i.e. Just because I choose to have a baby doesn’t mean I impose my choice on another woman to do so – I’m sure you didn’t really need me to point that out because that would mean you’re a bit stupid…..

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    Mute Atheos Euripides
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    Jun 29th 2017, 4:20 PM

    Those extremist Anti-Choice groups seem to have more organosations than members.

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    Mute DaisyChainsaw
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    Jun 29th 2017, 5:48 PM

    The same ten or so agitators, it would seem. It’s all so incestuous.

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    Mute David McDermott
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    Jun 29th 2017, 7:27 PM

    @DaisyChainsaw: seems to a commune of several integrated families all trying to pretend their not related as they pop up in the media.

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    Mute JMac
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    Jun 30th 2017, 2:40 AM

    @Atheos Euripides: Extremist groups! Kettle pot etc,!

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    Mute KEV
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    Jun 29th 2017, 4:08 PM

    The BAI better get used to these claims. Glad it was rejected.

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    Mute Francis Mc Carthy
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    Jun 29th 2017, 4:20 PM

    Odds are pretty short that Cora will be ranting on about IFPA on her twitter account..

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    Mute Atheos Euripides
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    Jun 29th 2017, 4:36 PM

    @Francis Mc Carthy: I’m always puzzled as to who Cora, David and Breda think they actually represent, because it’s not the Irish people. They might as well be campaigning to change the name of Leitrim to Tokyo, they’d have about the same amount of support.

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    Mute Francis Mc Carthy
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    Jun 29th 2017, 4:59 PM

    @Atheos Euripides: To be honest with you,I think that they represent a tiny minority of Irish people…A ball point figure to me, would be the amount of people that would want to see Irish women continue to travel to the UK in cases of FFA…and that usually is around the 12% mark..

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    Mute Iohanan
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    Jun 29th 2017, 5:24 PM

    @Atheos Euripides: they represent people like me actually. And if you consider that 38% of the electorate voted against same-sex marriage 2 years ago one can safely assume they represent a fair chunk of the electorate, especially when one considers that not everybody who is in favour of same-sex marriage is equally in favour of abortion, indeed the recent pole by the Irish times on abortion indicated that there was big divergence between the Citizens Assembly’s recommendation for unlimited and unrestricted abortion and the Irish electorate as represented in the Pole. So I’d say that Breda, David and Cora are representative of a substantial section if the Irish people.

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    Mute Atheos Euripides
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    Jun 29th 2017, 5:43 PM

    @Iohanan: They represent you? You must have very antiquated views then.

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    Mute Larry Doyle
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    Jun 29th 2017, 5:57 PM

    I’d say not everyone who voted on to losing side of the marriage equality referendum are anti-choice either @lohanan, but that’s just an opinion like yours and until there is a vote by the citizens of this country that is all we have, opinions. To object to having a referendum on this subject, which would allow this generation to have their say, is profoundly undemocratic and ultimately proves that those who wish the current restrictions to continue have little faith that they can prevail, hence these pointless complaints about media coverage of their dubious claims of abortion causing cancer and child abuse.

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    Mute Mark Walsh
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    Jun 29th 2017, 6:27 PM

    @Iohanan:
    It’s no one’s Business what other people do in their private lives
    If two same gender people want to marry it’s not anyone’s business
    If a Lady needs an abortion be on Social ‘ economic or any other reason it’s not anyone’s business
    The Church and its employees (priests) were molesting children for years and yet these F****ng were no where to be seen
    Leave people make their own decisions and get a life
    You people make me sick

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    Mute Iohanan
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    Jun 29th 2017, 8:05 PM

    @Mark Walsh: I care less what people do with their own lives but when one has an abortion they’re ending someone else’s life. Wrong full stop.

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    Mute Iohanan
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    Jun 29th 2017, 8:07 PM

    @Atheos Euripides: just because my beliefs are ‘antiquated’ doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

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    Mute Larissa Caroline Nikolaus
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    Jun 29th 2017, 8:17 PM

    @Iohanan: You must be such a saint, talking out of your behind, that you side with the (word starting with a w, rhymes with bankers) of the IONA so called institute tells me enough about you to label you a bigot and hypocrite and disregard your opinion as baseless

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    Mute Iohanan
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    Jun 29th 2017, 8:17 PM

    @Larry Doyle: whether we prevail or not in maintaining current abortion restrictions doesn’t address the simple question: is it lawful to end the life of another human being? because that’s what a foetus is, a small human being. Right and wrong, justice and truth exist in and of themselves and are not the fruit or the result of a public vote nor derive their essence from having been enacted by some governing body. Democracy is not infallible because the brainwashed proletariat can get it wrong as was the case with Hitler in Germany who ascended to power through popular vote. Perhaps if you deigned to condescend from your moral high horse you might put your mind to a more productive use than justifying the legalisation of a practice which will result in the loss of life of innocent people.

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    Mute Dave O Keeffe
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    Jun 29th 2017, 8:19 PM

    @Iohanan: well you’ve just called your own views outdated so where does that leave you? Second question, should pregnant women be counted as two people on census night? Give reasons for your answer please

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    Mute Iohanan
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    Jun 29th 2017, 8:32 PM

    @Dave O Keeffe: that my opinions are outdated is innocuous, and what would be wrong with counting a pregnant woman as two people?

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    Mute Iohanan
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    Jun 29th 2017, 8:39 PM

    @Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: if I were a saint I wouldn’t be on the journal arguing with scoundrels like you!

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    Mute Karen Wellington
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    Jun 29th 2017, 9:57 PM

    @Iohanan: your antiquated view that a foetus is a human being with the same inalienable human rights as the mother is wrong. Not because its antiquated, because its not supported by science and fact rather than nutty religious beliefs. Activity in the Cerebral Cortex doesnt begin until weeks 22/24, upgrading the foetus from the neonatal equivalent of whole brain death to the slightly more cognitive higher brain death, Im confident that youll argue that a foetus will potentially “grow out it”, doesnt change the fact that a foetus isn’t a person and potential isnt good enough reason to force a woman to continue with an unwanted/unviable pregnancy, all that aside;do you believe keeping a person whos clinically brain dead alive indefinitely via machines and medication is the right thing to do?

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    Mute Iohanan
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    Jun 29th 2017, 10:40 PM

    @Karen Wellington: its interesting that you assert that science does not support the notion that a foetus is a person. If tomorrow scientists discovered that there was a molecule of living bacteria on Mars it would be considered the greatest ground breaking potentially human advancing discovery in history to date, yet a foetus which will in all likelihood develop into a human being is not to be considered as life by scientific standards? And I would ask you this: if someone were in a coma but according to doctors had a 50% chance of making a full recovery would you turn off life support? Yet in the case of a foetus we know scientifically that it will develop into a person. So on what grounds do you abort the foetus? I’ll tell you, on the grounds of the anti-principle, might is right.

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    Mute JMac
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    Jun 30th 2017, 2:36 AM

    @Atheos Euripides: that’s the only ammunition you have, rubbishing your oponents with personal abuse. Who would represent inocent babies from pro-death groups if they and their supporters didn’t.

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    Mute Karen Wellington
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    Jun 30th 2017, 7:12 AM

    @Iohanan: you just went ahead and ignored my hypothesis to answer one of your own, and a demented one at that; what doctor is going to say “there’s a 50% chance of recovery but we’re going to give you the option of pulling the plug”? If you’re just going to draw ridiculous parallels there’s probably not much point in explaining anything to you. However, a foetus has the potential to become a person, it’s not guaranteed (miscarriage, stillbirth, fatal fatal abnormalities, a woman’s choice not to bring into the world an unwanted child they have no way of supporting to further exacerbate an already strained system). Bacteria is considered a form of life, not sure what point you’re trying to make by ascertaining that, bacteria doesn’t get special protection at the expense of an adult woman.

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    Mute Richard Lippy Collins
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    Jun 29th 2017, 4:26 PM

    Complaints about being bias towards an issue are fair and welcome, when warranted. There was no bias. People were caught out lying and that is what was reported on. They exposed the lies that women are being told to scare them out of abortions. Did these complainant’s want someone to come on and back up the lies? I’m confused. #repealthe8th

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    Mute John B
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    Jun 29th 2017, 6:30 PM

    @Richard Lippy Collins: the type of balance they’re looking for is akin to insisting on having an astrologer on for balance when discussing astronomy.

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    Mute Larissa Caroline Nikolaus
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    Jun 29th 2017, 8:57 PM

    @John B: Or having a flat earther on, when discussing geology

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    Mute Tommy Browne
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    Jun 29th 2017, 4:05 PM

    Everything produced by RTE has a distinct lack of balance.

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    Mute Paul Fahey
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    Jun 29th 2017, 4:09 PM

    @Tommy Browne: says the man who was stumbling around yesterday. None of your dozens of online personas has any balance, more imbalanced it seems.

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    Mute Tommy Browne
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    Jun 29th 2017, 4:11 PM

    @Paul Fahey:
    Just deal with the substance of the article and less of the ad hominems..thanks.

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    Mute Tommy Browne
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    Jun 29th 2017, 4:12 PM

    In the interest of civilised debate.

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    Mute DaisyChainsaw
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    Jun 29th 2017, 5:50 PM

    Yeah Paul. Tommy and his pseudonyms don’t like homos.

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    Mute Deborah Behan
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    Jun 29th 2017, 7:53 PM

    @DaisyChainsaw: he he hee!

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    Mute The Bob
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    Jun 29th 2017, 5:24 PM

    Whatever about having to make sure that opinions on both sides of a debate based on opinions and wishes are heard, it is disingenuous to try and fake balance and present it as if both sides are equally valid. Were RTE to go out of their way to try and find someone that thinks abortions do give you breast cancer to “balance” the expert opinion of the gynecologist no matter how valid it is or if there is any evidence to the contrary? If they presented both of them sides as equally valid then I think they would actually be biased.

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    Mute Tony Murphy
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    Jun 30th 2017, 4:18 PM

    I boycott everything to do with RTE. got rid of radio stations in the car and phone. Would delete from the TV also if it was possible. Shouldn’t be made pay for the license with the tripe they produce. Let them fend for themselves and watch them go down the plughole

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